I had a good day on day 64. Not as productive as I had hoped, but I got through the things I needed to get through.

I worked on four songs. The songs with the working titles of numbers 51, 52, and 53 all got rhythm guitar tracks. Four tracks in total. Two takes through two amps each. One pair of amps panned hard left and the other panned hard right. That’s how I always do it.

When I finished the third song I still had some time on my hands and wanted to keep playing guitar but I didn’t have anything else that was ready for a guitar part. So I did the only thing I could. I started a new song. I wrote song number 54 in its entirety. I usually start with MIDI tracks. Bass and drums and maybe something to use as a place holder for real guitars. This time I just set up a drum loop and started playing the guitar. I worked out the song form at the same time I was working out the riffs and chord changes. When I had the guitar worked out for the entire song I added a MIDI bass and replaced the drum loop with MIDI drums. Then I added a melody, played on a MIDI electric piano, then I wrote lyrics that fit the melody. Boom. Song 54 now exists.

45 songs complete. Nine more in progress. All of them have rhythm guitars and all but one have lyrics and are ready for vocals. 26 days left before it all ends.

Day 63’s update was exactly the same as day 62. I added one new song. It is all MIDI at this point but all of the parts have been written including the melody and the lyrics. I just have to replace the MIDI guitar with real guitars and replace the MIDI electric piano with vocals and then improv some lead guitar and we’re set.

Spoiler alert, day 64 has been fun. It would have been more fun if I didn’t suck at guitar so badly. I’ll probably bitch and moan about that tomorrow. Or not. We’ll find out tomorrow.

Day 62 (yesterday) was another day that felt pretty light on progress. Similar to day 61, I started a new song (number 52) and wrote the whole thing, lyrics and all. I didn’t record any real instruments yet. The whole thing is just MIDI “software instruments” (as GarageBand likes to call them), but everything is there just waiting for me to replace the fake guitars with real guitars and all of that fun stuff.

That’s all. I was hoping for more, but I am really just trying to set myself up for a big weekend. That’s the plan at least.

In yesterdays recap post I started thinking about redefining the 50 songs in 90 days challenge into a slightly different project. I’m thinking maybe 60 songs in 90 days? The most I’ve ever done in one of these things was 57 songs in 2024. I should at least try to top that.

My musical noodlings on day 61 started me down that path. I started the day with 50 songs in the project. 45 were complete, three were ready for vocal tracking, and two were waiting for lyrics and a melody. I wrote the lyrics and melody for one of those two songs and I should have worked on the second song as well. I did not though. Instead I added song number 51. It’s completely written with MIDI bass and drums finished, a MIDI guitar track that will act as a guide for when I record the actual guitars, the melody was recorded with a MIDI piano to act as a guide for when I record the vocals, and the lyrics are all written. Everything is done besides recording the real human stuff. One step beyond the 50 songs goal and one step closer to the new 60 song goal.

That’s all I managed yesterday. I hope to get more than that done tonight (day 62), but there is a new episode of Star Trek Strange New Worlds out today and it might get in the way. We’ll see.

Welcome to September. Day 60. We are 2/3 of the way through the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. In the home stretch, sort of. In the endgame, kind of.

45 songs finished, five still in progress. I looked back through my playlists on alonetone.com and I have finished this challenge four times. In 2014 I had exactly 50 songs. In 2020 I had 52. In 2021 I had 53. In 2024 I had a whopping 57.

I guess its time to redefine this year’s goal. First and foremost I want to finish the five remaining songs and hit 50. That’s the primary goal, of course. Beyond that… the RPM Challenge rules define an album as 10 songs… can I do a September album in a month? 10 songs started and finished within the month of September on top of the 45 + 5 I already have for 50/90… is 60 songs in 90 days possible?

Yes.

Will I actually do it?

I don’t know.

As for day number 60 itself, I wrote a melody and lyrics for two songs. That’s it. Of the five remaining songs, three have lyrics and are ready for vocal tracking. The other two are still waiting on lyrics and the recordings only consist of the rhythm section.

I’m hoping to record the vocals for all five of these puppies over the weekend. I guess I should also start coming up with some more riffs if I want to make 60 songs a thing.

Day 59 was the last day of August. After this there is only one month to go.

After the humongous amount of progress over the weekend I had told myself that I was taking Monday off. Then I didn’t. I am definitely a little brain fried, musically speaking, so I wasn’t able to get much done but I did work on one song. I added lyrics and a melody to one of the five remaining songs. That was it. I tried to pick off another song but I just couldn’t get my tiny little brain to function properly and I called it a day.

One month to go and only five songs left before I hit the goal. 50 songs in 90 days and I have 45 songs done and five more partially done and I still have a whole month to go. Cool.

The word of the day is 90%.

I mixed four songs last night. That’s all. It brings my finished song count up to an absurd 45. The goal is 50 songs in 90 days and I’m at 45 in 58 days. If today were a weekend rather than a Monday with a scary dentist appointment scheduled I would finish off the last five songs and have the whole thing done in 60 days instead of 90. That’s just ridiculous, right?

45 songs complete. Five songs still in progress. All five of them have the rhythm section complete and are waiting on lyrics and melodies. We are traveling the second week of September and I would very much like to hit the 50 song goal before we leave. I can do that. There’s a three day weekend coming up. Then the only question is how many extra songs beyond the 50 song goal will I come up with before the end date on October 1st.

This is one of those days where I got so much done that I have probably lost track of it all. When I look at my folder with all of my GarageBand files in it I can see that 10 files were updated yesterday. Oh, just 10? That’s all?

Okay, let’s try to piece it all together. I had six songs ready for vocals when the day began. I also had one song ready to mix and three songs ready for lyrics and three songs ready for rhythm guitars. I think. That sounds right.

The first thing I did was vocals. I finished all six of the songs that were ready. I then took one of the songs that was waiting for rhythm guitars but had a fake MIDI guitar guide track and added lyrics, melody, and vocals. That gave me seven songs in one car music session (that’s when I drive to an empty parking lot and sing badly without bothering anyone in the house). That might be a world record. I probably could have tried another song but I had to pee so… yeah.

When I got home it was time for guitars. When all was said and done, six songs got lead guitars, two songs got rhythm guitars, and one song (the one that got the extra vocals) got both rhythm guitars and lead guitars. I know you’re wanting to ask so yes, my finger tips were killing me. I am so out of playing shape these days.

At this point I didn’t have anything ready for more guitar tracks, I didn’t have anything ready for vocal tracks. I had songs that needed melodies and lyrics, and songs that were ready to mix. I had a choice and I chose mixing. I finished four songs. I now have 41 songs finished. Only nine more to go, and I already have four ready to mix.

I’m so freakin close to being done with this and I still have over a month to go.

I came close to getting shut out on day 56 (yesterday) but at the literal last minute I pulled off the barest of bare minimums and got something done.

Song idea number 49 was three eight bar bass/drum riffs. I took those three riffs and worked them into a song structure about 3-4 minutes long. I did that just before I fell asleep. And just like that I was not shut out.

I did a couple of additional things. Songs 48-50 were started on either my iPhone or my iPad. There’s a bug in the GarageBand Drummer function that pops up when you import an iOS or iPadOS file to MacOS. The drummer function gets converted to a regular, plain old MIDI drum track. It didn’t used to do that. It used to show up on the Mac as a Drummer track that you can edit as normal. Recently that stopped happening. The additional work I did last night was to replace the MIDI drums with Drummers, which are also just MIDI drums but have better editing tools. I should probably call the Drummer function an A.I. type of thing, but A.I. is lame and I don’t wanna.

So that was it for day 56. One song form and three replaced drum tracks. Spoiler alert for tomorrow’s day 58 post… there’s going to be more significant progress. What fun!

No progress on day 55. I spent hours stuck in traffic on a closed highway in the morning and then went to a concert in the evening. I got home early enough that I might have been able to spend a few minutes on musical stuff but my brain was completely fried and it just didn’t wanna.

I might have better luck today (day 56) but I’m not holding my breath. The weekend is almost here though and I’m looking forward to a couple of productive days.